Symbols In Stephen King's The Shining

Stephen King is claimed to be one of the greatest writers of all time with too many novels to count published. On top of the novels, majority of his novels have been turned into a movie or television series. One of the most recognizable novel turned movie is The Shining. The storyline takes place around a struggling writer and his family who became the caretakers of a hotel in the mountains of Colorado for the winter. They are trapped by the snow, and when cabin fever catches up to the man, Jack, things get out of hand. People worldwide love the novel and the movie, but Mr. King has spoken out against the movie version due to changes made by the director, Stanley Kubrick. The variations between the novel and movie include: Jack Torrance’s battle …show more content…
The novel ended in fire, but the movie ended in ice. One of the better known symbols in The Shining novel is the boiler that Jack Torrance has to keep cooled down to prevent it from exploding. In the movie, the boiler is not mentioned, but the hedge maze filled with snow is a setting from time to time. The explosion that sets the hotel on fire, in the book, was a foreseen consequence for Jack’s negligence to take care of it. However, when he attacks his son and wife and chases them into the hedge maze, in the film, he loses them and ends up freezing to death. The endings contrast each other so much that it feels like the two projects are not related in any …show more content…
The novel has the aspects of Jack Torrance bending and breaking from the average father to an unstable killer. The movie has the thrills that the novel lacks and makes the viewers jump out of their seats in terror. They both relate to the ways that cabin fever has the family anxious for springtime, and they portray how Jack and his wife, Wendy, clash from the climax to the resolution. In their own ways, both projects are a must for fans of horror to experience in their lives if they want to truly experience